I have a game made, I have been working with a concept artist for a year and I need some advice. I now need a team, but what legal actions (if any should I take?!) Do I copyright my work, in order to share it with a team?

How would you go about sharing a big idea with a very interesting story? I have done re-search on copyrights, but is it a real danger when the game is still in its roots?

I shall be sharing scenes, actions, characters, character attacks, maps, enemies, bosses, and healing systems. (I won't be revealing company name or logo)

Thanks for your time! I shall be watching @.@

Reedbeta
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2013-01-21T22:01:04Z —
#2

In the USA and most other countries, your work is automatically copyrighted purely by virtue of you having created it. So you don't need to go through any kind of process to copyright your work; just put a copyright notice on there and you're good to go.

I do not think having someone steal your ideas is a real danger at all. First of all, ideas are not the meat of a successful game; execution is; ideas are just a multiplier on execution. Second, people who are capable of executing on an idea most likely already have ideas of their own that they would rather work on, so why would they steal yours?

You can ask people to sign an NDA or something before sharing any of your ideas with them, if you like. And if you create a team with any of these people, it's probably best to have a written and signed partnership agreement of some kind, specifying things like the owner of the intellectual property, the distribution of revenues, what happens if someone leaves the team, etc.

Brad42690
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2013-01-22T02:37:49Z —
#3

Thank you very much! That is just about as good as it gets! Specially the ALL PARTS! hahaha I thank you!

silkroadgame
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2013-05-03T09:40:11Z —
#4

This is really an useful question!Copyright is hardly defined clearly,especially when you share with your own team.But when we build a team,signing a confidentiality contract is necessary before any projects,even any small ideas.